


Hunter

by NimbusLlewelyn



Series: Children of the Stars [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Amatakka, Amavikka, Big Sisters, Facing Fears, Force-Sensitive Shmi Skywalker, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Loss of Parent(s), Malnutrition, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship, Non-Sexual Slavery, Oh My God So Many Feels, Parental Shmi Skywalker, Past Brainwashing, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slavery, Survivor Guilt, Tatooine Folklore (Star Wars), Tatooine Slave Culture (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:54:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28704738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NimbusLlewelyn/pseuds/NimbusLlewelyn
Summary: Everyone's past has ghosts, some more than others. But while what is past cannot be changed, and what was done cannot be undone, what is yet to come is still to be decided.Or, Rachel has so many issues, Shmi is basically a foster parent and in denial about it (with Rachel as the strange sort of independent foster kid who goes off and does things without much warning and gives Shmi conniptions), and Rachel adores Anakin.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Rachel Summers, Anakin Skywalker & Shmi Skywalker, Shmi Skywalker & Rachel Summers
Series: Children of the Stars [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2102040
Comments: 7
Kudos: 32





	Hunter

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, this series really is not letting go any time soon. I have this and at least one other chapter to follow written in just the last couple of days. Never fear, fans of my other work, I’m hardly abandoning it – just dabbling elsewhere. Also, this is far longer than expected, and contains far more feels.

Shmi does not know much about Rachel's past. This is not surprising - while the girl trusts her, she knows little and says less. As it turns out, not only can Rachel not remember how she got to Tatooine, but she doesn't know much about where she came from.

Oh, she knows some generalities very well; the planet's name (Earth), the kind of system (single star), even down to the name and rough area of her home. If you could call it a home. The words 'containment camp' are not promising, even by the low standards of slaves.

But when it comes to her specific past, so much seems to blur. Fragments whirl to the surface, from time to time, usually in dreams.

Giant men made of metal and plastic, depur, overseers and executioners all at once (which explains why she tends to flinch around droids).

An overseer, a man, most of his body replaced with machinery, his remaining flesh grey with age, carrying a spear in one hand and chains in another, a miasma of cruelty and hatred mixed with possessive hunger floating about him.

A woman with hair and eyes just like hers, exuding _warmth-love-life_ enough to warm her very soul, and a man, tall and strong with red glasses, and after the woman vanishes, so very sad, in whose arms she always feels safe right up until he vanishes too, and she learns that safety is a lie.

Two wise old men, both in wheelchairs, grandfathers of her heart - one, dying in her arms as the servants of depur find and chain her, the other, dying to protect her and a last hope that came to nothing.

A kind boy, with golden hair and eyes like the deep blue sea, who sees through gaunt flesh and endless guilt to the burning spirit that depur has not managed to stamp out, and loves her as she loves him - but love is not enough, and the smell of burning flesh and the sound of cracking bone haunt her dreams.

Then, there is the last in this litany of mourning. The only survivor, the bearer of that last hope, that failed and came to nothing. A shadow and a ghost still living, she whispers to Rachel, but Rachel does not remember what.

"She might still be alive," Rachel says hesitantly. "Kate is a survivor."

But she does not sound like she truly believes it - or, frankly, that she wants to. After all, if she is dead, then she is free, for even depur cannot chain the dead. If she is alive, however... Shmi has heard it said that where there is life, there is hope. It is a Core-World saying, which does not surprise her. On the Outer Rim, they know better, and so does Rachel. As she says with bitter conviction, "the Dream is dead."

She does not know what this Dream is, only that it was about hope, and freedom, and everyone that she loved - and Shmi can see that she loved them, even if she cannot remember their names - died fighting for it. Only the metal men and the overseer survived.

Shmi knows that she sees them in dreams; she wakes up often, screaming sometimes, crying at others, frequently doing both. Shmi holds her and rocks her gently, humming until she calms down, and doesn't let go - she's learned that if she does that, Rachel vanishes out of embarrassment and shame for waking them. When they can spare the water, she even makes _tzai_ , which lulls the girl back off to sleep.

Anakin is usually woken too. Indeed, he is usually there before Shmi, and increasingly, even before Rachel wakes up. When he is, she is calmer, guilt over-ridden by a lapful of determined six-year-old, who she clings to with the desperation of the soul-lonely. "Don' be sad, Rachel," he says to her. "Me 'n Amu'll look after you."

She laughs, damp but real, kisses his hair, and says, "You already are, Ani."

And he does. Increasingly, he seems to know the bad nights before they come, and on those nights, he slips away from Shmi and curls up with Rachel, and even if she already asleep, she reaches out an arm and pulls him close. So long as he is there, she does not wake up at all, and sleeps soundly.

But there is a third kind of bad dream. There is weeping after these dreams too, but these tears are quiet tears, broken, raw, and wretched sobs of guilt, not grief, and they mix with cold sweat. As soon as these dreams happen, she vanishes, beyond the ability of even Anakin to find her, disappearing into the desert, sometimes not returning for up to three days.

The first few times it happens, Shmi is afraid that she won't come back at all. She mistakes the shame on Rachel's face when Shmi scolds her (then hugs her) for self-recrimination at having made Shmi worry (and Anakin too, who scolds far more loudly and indignantly than Shmi and in an impressive number of languages).

But soon, she realises that there is more to it than that, especially since Rachel tends to remain in the shadows on the days after those dreams, her presence radiating guilt and sorrow, and she tends to flinch away from depur and their servants. She also usually brings something back. It can be scrap, lost in the sands, half-used wood and bits and pieces from recently used campsites, or food - usually snakes or lizards, though at least once she's brought back a young bantha.

Shmi has no idea how she managed that (well, she has suspicions, but only vague ones, made of stories that she half believes are myths), since even though Rachel is growing and now slim rather than emaciated, she is still quite small, and a young bantha is about twice her size and four times her weight. But manage it she does, and once Shmi ensures that it is dealt with, every slave in the quarter eats well that night, and has a surplus of jerky to fall back on for weeks after.

Rachel also soon finds that she has new clothes: word has got around who brought in the young bantha, and Rachel, with her permanent sunburn, fire-red hair that is growing into a neatly braided tail, and bright green eyes is a distinctive figure - all the more so for the way in which she is increasingly sticking out of her strange coveralls, no matter how Shmi tries to let down the hems.

That new clothing is relatively simple; a dress, robes, a tunic, and trousers, all loose where they need to be loose, and tight where they need to be tight (unlike her coveralls, which are the complete opposite). They are not fancy and they are not new, being second-hand and in shades of brown, white, and grey, but they are both comfortable and hard-wearing.

Rachel is both embarrassed and pleased, especially once Shmi has refitted them for her (and headed off objections to them by gently teasing her that it'll be far easier to alter these to fit as she grows than those strange coveralls), and suddenly performs a girlish twirl in her dress, letting out a bubbling laugh of delight, echoed by Anakin.

"You look pretty," he says. "Like Amu!"

Shmi agrees with the first part, but dress sense aside, Anakin is being rather kind to her - she is certainly not ugly, but she is not either Anakin or Rachel. Anakin is a beautiful child, and when she sees Rachel twirl and laugh, she sees the child that she was once, and the woman that she will become, and both are nothing less than lovely.

Rachel clearly sides with Anakin, however, swooping down and giving him a sound kiss on the cheek, making him giggle, then looks at Shmi, hesitates, smiles shyly, before her face lights up and she impulsively hugs Shmi, kissing her firmly on the cheek too.

"I _fit_ ," she says, in a mixture of gleeful giddy happiness and relief. Anakin gives her a look that says of _course_ she fits, what she's going on about? But Shmi thinks she knows what Rachel means.

For months, Rachel has been wearing coveralls that stick out and make her look like a lost mechanic at best, and thoroughly out of place, only wearing something else when the coveralls are put through the fresher, and that something else is usually one of Shmi's dresses, in which she resembles a little girl in her mother's clothes (Shmi privately finds the sight adorable, but doesn't say so - though she suspects that her expression does so for her), and she usually gets out of them as soon as her things are clean. Now... now, she looks like she belongs.

In any case, Shmi doesn't ask how Rachel finds things, or why she feels compelled to after one of those dreams, and instead just thanks her and leaves it at that. Anakin does ask, once, before she manages to stop him and explain that some things are best not asked about. Anakin does not ask further, and apologises very solemnly to Rachel, even though he is clearly burning with curiosity. All this achieves is that the girl accepts the apology, mutters something about wanting to contribute to the household, and only _mostly_ hides for the rest of the day.

Though she does not know how she does it, Shmi has a strong suspicion of what drives those third nightmares, that instinct. It has floated in the back of her mind since Rachel first introduced herself with the name her depur gave her: "Hound."

Rachel is free now, but her depur left many scars on her, some of which are visible (those tattoos on her face, for instance - though she can hide those if she wants to), and most of which are not. One of them is a hunter's instinct, and Shmi is not fool enough to believe that her depur instilled it in her simply to forage for food or scraps. Now, she thinks, she knows what Rachel was enslaved for.

Shmi knows the way of tamed hunting animals, and has seen them used by many depur as a demonstration of power. She has seen how they are treated, how they are broken and tamed. She also knows what _else_ they are sometimes used for, when slaves are particularly resourceful. Armed with that knowledge, she can read between the lines of Rachel's lost memories, and see guilt screaming back. She may never have been tamed or truly broken, but she came close enough.

So, she treads a careful line: she asks that Rachel leave a note when she is leaving with an estimated time of return, makes sure she takes some japoor butter (because even after months on Tatooine, her skin is still extremely fair and burns so easily). And when Rachel brings something back, she thanks her, but emphasises that she does not need to.

She does not say, "you shouldn't have," in the dissembling way of wealthy outlanders. She does say, "you did not have to, but I thank you for choosing to do so." Rachel, after all, is a person with choices to make, not a pet with commands to follow.

Shmi brings Rachel along when she buys food, certainly, but she brings Anakin, too. Sometimes, the two of them stay with her, and sometimes, they listen to Ekkreth stories from the Grandmother of the Quarter, and Shmi is glad of that. Rachel is free now, but she was born free too, and made a slave, and the tales of Ekkreth contain lessons that she needs to learn. Grandmother is wise, and sees Rachel for what she is immediately.

"Your children are special, Shmi," Grandmother says.

Shmi is a little surprised, for she has always known that Anakin is special. Not just in the way that all children are special to their parents, not even in his extraordinary intelligence, but something more. But Anakin, for all his special nature, is still only one child. Then, she realises what Grandmother means.

"Rachel is not my daughter, Grandmother," Shmi says. After all, she is less than twice Rachel's age. "Though I would be proud if she was."

Grandmother simply chuckles knowingly. "Your children are special," she repeats, and after a few moments, Shmi realises what she means. Grandmother sees further than most, and sometimes, so does Shmi. While she has never been able to quantify what is so unusual that she sees in Anakin, she realises that she can see it in Rachel too, especially when they are apart (when they are together, they almost seem to overlap).

She looks at them again, now with greater clarity, and she sees starlight in their eyes. It explains a lot, she thinks, including their immediate fondness for each other. But she does not say anything more, and neither does Grandmother. It is, after all, their business. Instead, she leaves them to learn, Anakin seated firmly in Rachel's lap.

If Rachel decides to come along, and she sometimes does (though she rarely leaves Anakin behind, and Anakin is even less likely to want to stay behind, even if he's been working on something really interesting at home or today's story is one of his favourites), then Shmi does not solicit her aid in haggling or picking out good produce, but she does not discourage it either. Instead, she leaves the choice open to her and gently encouraging her if she seems eager but uncertain.

When she does, she proves extremely perceptive, often quietly pointing out to Shmi who will bend and who will not (which Shmi often already knows, but she appreciates confirmation), who needs to sell and who does not (which Shmi does not know until at least several minutes into a good haggle), and who is trying to pass off poor quality produce (which is not always obvious, even to Shmi's experienced eye). Shmi encourages her to haggle, and over time, when determination overcomes hesitancy, she does. She proves to be a quick study, intensity and a mostly controlled temper behind piercing green eyes and a tattooed face making up for diminutive stature.

The important thing is that Shmi is careful not to ask her to use her skills. To gently show her that they can be used in peaceable ways, yes, that what makes her special is far, far more than what depur made her use it for, yes. But no more. She encourages, she nudges, but she never, ever pushes.

Not even when Anakin goes missing one night and cannot be found, not by anyone in the Quarter, and she is at her wits end. She is sorely tempted, she will admit, but she does not. Rachel loves Anakin, and making her hunt him, even for good reason, would be a betrayal. There has to be another way.

Besides, Rachel has gone wandering again, and is not due back for another day (while Shmi only meant a general estimate for when she would be back, Rachel is both precise in her timing and scrupulously punctual). Shmi is on the point of deciding that ransacking Watto's home for the tracker and detonator to find him herself, even if this means attacking Watto to do it, when Rachel reappears.

"Anakin's gone," she says. It is not a question. Somehow, she knows, she knew even before she laid eyes on a frantic Shmi - and it cannot be from anyone else, because Rachel tends to come directly home from her wandering.

Shmi nods, and Rachel freezes. Then, she closes her eyes, slowly breathes in and out, and when she opens them again, they are set and determined. She raps out questions; estimated time of disappearance, last place seen, last activity seen, and places already searched.

Then, she strides out, this time with a definite predatory edge, Shmi following in her wake. She stops where Anakin was last seen - near Grandmother's fruit stall - and her gaze seems to shift out of focus, head tilted as if she is trying to get a scent. Suddenly, her head snaps around and she strides onwards, completely certain of where she is going. They take a long and winding route through Mos Espa, until half an hour later, they end up in an alley near a junkyard, where they find Anakin - bruised and bloodied, but _alive._

He latches onto Shmi desperately as she scoops him up, babbling through sobs of relief about how he's sorry for making her worry, but he'd heard that this junk merchant was selling up and the person who was taking over didn't want the junk, and they were selling it all off cheap, and there was this really _neat_ abandoned part for his podracer and he was going to come back, but as soon as he'd got it, some mean _kriffing_ freelance junkers had robbed him, and he'd chased after them to try and make them give it back but they _wouldn't_ , and when he wouldn't leave them alone, they'd laughed at him, then they'd hit him a few times and thrown him into the street, and by that time it was _dark_ and he didn't know where he _was_...

Shmi doesn't care about any of it, and neither does Rachel, whose expression had melted into purest relief (though when the junkers come up, her expression darkens, and she looks like she's thinking about trying to pick up their trail next and following it with malice aforethought). On the way back, she holds Anakin tight too, when Shmi finally releases him (because she is physically and emotionally exhausted, and Anakin is a growing boy, and it is a long way back, and as a result, her arms are starting to hurt).

When Anakin is in bed, blood wiped away, bruises smeared with what ointment can be found, mysteriously devoid of pain but for a faint ache, Shmi stops Rachel in the doorway. "Thank you," she says. "For what you did today." She looks the girl in the eye. "For finding my son."

Rachel goes pink and drops her head. "Just doing what I could," she mumbles.

"And it was hard for you," she says.

Rachel shakes her head, sudden and sharp. "No," she says, sounding sickened. "It was... it was _easy_."

"Which is why it was hard," Shmi says. "Because you knew it would be easy."

Rachel shudders and says nothing.

"Your depur made you a hound," Shmi continues gently. "And yes, a hound could have found my son."

This time, the shudder is a flinch.

Shmi gently, but firmly, takes Rachel's jaw and tips it upwards again, looking her in the eyes. "But you are not a hound," she says. "Because a hound is not free, and a hound could not _choose_ to find my son. You did. You have the skills that your depur gave you, but they are not what you are. They are not _who_ you are. You are Rachel Summers. You are not a hound; you are a hunter. You _chose_ to use your skills to find my son and bring him home, and you did it knowing what it might cost you. And for that I thank you."

Rachel flushes, her green eyes huge and damp. "He needed me," she says. "So I did it."

"You did it because you love him," Shmi says, and Rachel flushes even deeper, because she is right, and Shmi pauses, and smiles, a little wryly, because she realises that as usual, Grandmother was right. "Just like a sister should."

Rachel's eyes widen even further, full of a mixture of old grief (for the mother they both know is lost) and new, fragile hope. Shmi smiles and offers her hands, palms raised, if she wants to accept the tacit offer. Slowly, disbelievingly, the girl takes her hands, and stares at them in wonder, before finally looking up again at Shmi.

"Thank you," she whispers.

Then, slowly, Shmi gathers her new daughter into her arms, holding her tight as she clings back. Her children are special indeed.


End file.
